Shooting with Steph

I've only ever known Steph through Instagram. Just through shared likes and comments but nothing else. This past Monday we went on a drive up the coast from Santa Cruz to up on Skyline Boulevard. 

Once we started driving north of Santa Cruz, I realized that there gas going to be a heavy amount of fog. I was expecting sunny weather because of how warm it was in Los Gatos. The first, and only, stop on the coast was at Shark Fin Cove, somewhere that I've shot at often in the past.  Posing models is something that I have still been working on. Working with models with experience is definitely something that is much easier because they know how to move and pose themselves. I want to pick up on it more in the future in order to help with shoots I have with people that have no experience.

I've been trying to add foreground in my photos to add depth. When I look through my photos, the composition looks a bit flat because they don't have foreground. By shooting through the flowers I was able to add some depth. 

After only a few photos around the cliffs, we headed back up the coast. To get a good sunset we needed to go up the coast and up to Russian Ridge. The clouds did allow for good photos, but they were flatter than what I have gotten used to.

We tried to do some good hair flip photos. I think I need to work on my framing. The most difficult part was to get the composition correct, moving the camera to get photo weight evenly distributed.  Also, having there be a good amount of space in the direction she was facing was important.

Nice rim lighting. Sometimes less is more. A simple portrait with a little bit of rim lighting.I used her hair to block out any harsh lighting, then I was able to bring back the shadow in post. 

Last photo of the day. The tall grass had a nice gradient to it. 

Location:

Shark Fin Cove

Russian Ridge Open Space

Link

Steph

Photos Don't Edit Themselves

Personally, the easiest part about taking photos is taking the photo. It's easy to go out on a drive and snap a good number of shots to share, but it's not that easy(at least not for me). My photos are a reflection of me, and I want them to be as much like me as they can be. 

This past week I've taken a good number of shots between the meets and shoots that I've had. So the past couple of days have just been me playing catch up. Since transitioning from landscape to portrait photos, I've prioritized reducing my turn around time for photos. Before I was able to take photos and go a week without touching them, but portrait photos are more than just for me. 

A quick shot from the top of the hill. I don't know exactly what the name of it is but it is off of Skyline Boulevard about 10 minutes north of the highway 9 intersection. I captured a good amount of sun rays before the clouds completely blocked out the sun from hitting the hills. Although in the distance I could still see the ocean being hit with the rays.  

More photos of Dani.  

More of the #meetupiara photos

Layers from the sunset up on Russian Ridge.  

More sunset photos from the #bdsanfrancisco meet

When I edit photos, I make sure that they look good on my phone screen more than my computer screen. People look at their phones nowadays so I find it better to edit photos for my phone. The screen on my phone does give photos a warmer look so when I edit I always adjust them little cooler when finishing up. 

I do also have 5 presets that I am working on. They need constant adjustments to work over a large range of photos. A preset that works for only a couple of photos would not be a good preset. 

I'll have more blogs about my edits soon, maybe a couple of tutorials too. More shoot blogs coming soon too. 

Locations:

Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

Mount Tamapais State Park

Santa Cruz, California

Links

iarabikini.com

Dani

Taylor

Deny

Not in Yosemite #bdsanfrancisco

I was mentally prepared to go to Yosemite, but at the same time, I was hoping not to go because of how tired I was. After scrolling through Yosemite Instagram tags, my brother and I decided we did not want to go to Yosemite because of the amount of summer traffic there was. 

So we headed north. He wanted to just go to the Beautiful Destinations Meet at Mount Tamalpais, and I wanted to head to Point Reyes before. We decided to head to Point Reyes beforehand. We decided to go to Point Reyes first to just see how it was, not expecting to be there for long. Because of Bay to Breakers, there was also a large amount of traffic in San Francisco when we were heading up. 

I have not had a lot of luck in Point Reyes. I have nothing to show from the past few times I've gone to shoot there because of a lost memory card and broken hard drive. Any goof photo would've make this trip worth the time. 

The cypress tree tunnel looked good but also flat because of the fog. There were also a lot of people also taking photos while I was there, making it difficult to get a clean shot. Even in the photo above, I had to edit some people out. The fog at the lighthouse the lighthouse was even heavier, making it impossible to look down to the shoreline, which was one of the photos I wanted to take. I had to be patient to take the shot I wanted because of how many people there were, which was expected on a Sunday. I managed to snag the shot shot below in the small amount of time when it cleared up(shot using a 35mm lens). I realized that point Reyes really is a location where you have to there at the right time in order to get the "good" shots. 

After finishing up we decided to head over to the meet, we were already going to be late, so we weren't in a rush. The meet was slow to start like they all are. There was an initial meet up spot to talk and connect with other people before everyone started to shoot. I took the shot above from the location where everyone was socializing. My lens of choice for the meet was the 85, like always, to get a good amount of compression and to take nice sharp photos. 

Photo of Derrick. Even though this was a landscape type of meet, I brought my reflector and was ready to take some portraits if needed. The tracks for really helped against the hard sunset light. It also made a cool moon looking reflection off of Derrick's glasses. 

Quick time lapse while waiting for the sky to pop. The fog also wasn't high enough to take good photos of it in between the trees. After this, I focused on taking photos of the clouds and of the hills. I had my doubts when we first saw out into the horizon but it ended up being an amazing and colorful sunset.

Last attempt at rolling fog and last photo of the day. 

Location:

Mount Tamalpais State Park

Links:

instagram.com/de_troy